TelecomWeb News Digest articles from October 2007

TelecomWeb News Digest archives from October 2007

Latigent Staffers Call Cisco Buyout "A Huge Win".
October 1, 2007... Cisco is buying Chicago-based Latigent LLC., a provider of Web-based business-intelligence and analytics-reporting solutions that focus on contact centers. Latigent's CTO says its products "sit wonderfully on top of Cisco products." ...

TDSolutions Center Offers Resellers Easy-Access UC Apps.
October 1, 2007... Tech Data Corporation solidified its support for telephony resellers by adding an array of unified-communications (UC) solutions to its 4,500-sq.-ft. TDSolutions Center. UC is the latest solution featured in the center, which currently...

IM Caller ID Protects Enterprises From Security Glitches.
October 1, 2007... Houston-based Presensoft has a new application it says protects enterprises against security holes like those recently identified in several of America Online's popular instant-messaging (IM) platforms. According to the company, the new...

Founders Flee As Skype Failures Cost eBay $1 Billion Plus.
October 1, 2007... eBay is writing off $1.43 billion of its costly acquisition of Skype, effectively admitting that its estimate of how much the planet's leading Web- based VoIP provider was worth when it bought it was way too high - at least two times what it...

AT&T Plunges Into Enterprise Conferencing Market.
October 1, 2007... AT&T is paying $121 million for privately held Interwise, a global provider of voice, Web and video conferencing services to businesses. The former Ma Bell will meld the new acquisition into AT&T Global Business Services, the unit it's...

Rackspace Buys Enterprise E-Mail Hosting Provider.
October 1, 2007... Enterprise managed-hosting specialist Rackspace Managed Hosting has acquired Webmail.us, claimed to be the largest provider of business class e-mail hosting in the industry, boasting more than 600,000 business mailboxes under management and...

3Com Targets SMB Market With Unified VoIP Offering.
October 2, 2007... 3Com has gone to market with a unified-communications (UC) platform it says brings enterprise-class IP telephony to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The product introduction brings a "business as usual" atmosphere to 3Com in...

Partners Meld VoIP Phone-Tracking Applications.
October 2, 2007... One of the issues confronting medium-to-large-size enterprises deploying VoIP networks is keeping track of changes to the physical-layer connections. If a connection is moved at the patch panel, the physical layer map that associates the...

India Gold Rush: 500 Vie For New Telco Licenses.
October 2, 2007... More than 500 hopefuls have applied so far for new telco operating licenses in India, with AT&T leading a stampede of 200 or so companies charging through the door yesterday, just hours before the closing bell for applications. If AT&T...

New UC App Adds Presence To Windows Desktop.
October 2, 2007... Objectworld Communications Corp., a provider of unified-communications (UC) software for Microsoft Windows platforms used by SMBs, now is marketing Objectworld Unified Communications Server 4.2, which it says delivers the productivity...

Three-Pronged Sylantro Upgrade Cuts Across Wireless, Wireline.
October 2, 2007... Sylantro Systems says it's expanded its Synergy Application Feature Server, naming it Release 4.2 and making it available as three end-to-end editions for the hosted VoIP market, the mobile market and the emerging "Voice 2.0" market. ...

Avaya Gets HOT In Israel.
October 2, 2007... Avaya's Israeli subsidiary won the tender to build a VoIP-based contact center for cable-TV operator HOT Cable Systems Media Ltd, an order said to be the largest of its kind in the history of that country. Under terms of the order, Avaya...

Google Entices Enterprises With GMail Upgrade.
October 3, 2007... Google is beefing up the e-mail portion of Google Applications, its attempt to crack the enterprise market and to lure users away from Microsoft Office by more than doubling capacity and integrating the security and other features it got in...

Microsoft Enters Small-Business VoIP Market.
October 3, 2007... Microsoft released its Response Point phone system software - aimed at businesses with as many as 50 employees and/or 100 extensions - to manufacturing, with hardware manufacturers offering phone systems based on the software to start taking...

Contact Centers: Take Advantage Of This Free Offer.
October 3, 2007... Calif.-based eGain Communications Corporation is offering a free "Best Practice Assessment Study (eGain BPAS)" to qualified enterprise contact centers. The eGain BPAS provides an assessment of the following: >>The objectives of the...

Acme Packet SBCs Support Bandwidth.com's Enterprise VoIP.
October 3, 2007... Session border control solutions provider Acme Packet says Bandwidth.com has deployed Acme Packet's Net-Net session border controllers (SBCs) as part of its VoIP services for small and medium businesses (SMBs) throughout the United States....

Controversial Philippines Government Broadband Net Scrubbed.
October 3, 2007... The contract to build a broadband network linking every government office in the Philippines has been cancelled as a result of charges that China's Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment (ZTE) Corp had bribed government officials to win the...

Enterprise Data Centers May Change From Owned To Hosted.
October 3, 2007... New research says that, by 2011, more than 70 percent of U.S. enterprise data centers will face tangible disruptions related to energy consumption, floor space and/or costs. According to Gartner, during the next five years, most U.S....

Oracle App Targets Comms Company Needs.
October 4, 2007... Oracle Communications is touting a new "productized integration approach" based on its Application Integration Architecture that it says is the communications industry's "first pre-integrated business application platform, tailored to...

AT&T Tilt Could Be The New Office Phone.
October 4, 2007... While the iPhone has pretty much been passed over as a possible enterprise device, the new "Tilt" phone from AT&T, available tomorrow, may fit the bill. AT&T says the Tilt is its first Windows Mobile 6 smart device, featuring a slide-out...

Asierus Promises 'Total' Managed-Services Package.
October 4, 2007... Outsourced network management and information technology (IT) support services provider Asierus has put together a managed-services package for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) it says eliminates the need for a company to worry about...

Enterprise VoIP Security House Snags New Funding.
October 4, 2007... Investors have plowed another $10 million into Sipera Systems, a Texas startup targeting VoIP and unified communications (UC) security and consulting for enterprise-class customers. The new cash brings to $29.5 million the amount so far...

Time-Warner Targets IPTV Businesses, Disses Cable.
October 4, 2007... Cable giant Time-Warner is launching a television service called "BusinessLink.tv" just for its business customers - and it's not using cable-TV video technology. Rather, it's chosen IPTV over broadband, delivered over its cable...

The Converged Communications User Bill of Rights.
October 4, 2007... There continues to be confusion in the marketplace about IP telephony, converged communications and what's needed to manage them. Communicado, formerly known as SyncVoice Communications, has some thoughts regarding the minimum enterprise...

GAO Report: FCC Insiders Leak To Lobbyists.
October 5, 2007... A recently released federal report says FCC staffers have made it a practice of leaking nonpublic information to a few lobbyists regarding important telecom rulings prior to the actual public votes taken at open commission meetings, giving...

Avistar Hosted Video Service 'Totally Cool'.
October 5, 2007... Recent research from Ovum indicates that the use of IP video-conferencing desktops will continue to increase, with worldwide spending forecasts nearly doubling during the next four years and eclipsing spending for room-based video...

Duke University Virtual-World Focus Could Help Enterprises Communicate.
October 5, 2007... Virtual worlds, the three-dimensional, computer-generated spaces businesses use for communication, collaboration, training and interactive marketing, could become even more useful for business as a result of a strategic partnership between...

InnerWireless, Cisco Team For Enhanced RFID Tracking.
October 5, 2007... In support of an initiative from hospital administrators to identify and reduce waste, Denver Health has expanded its RFID tracking throughout its 1.5 million-sq.-ft., 477-bed hospital using gear from Texas-based InnerWireless Inc., a...

Alcatel-Lucent Still An AT&T Supplier, But For How Long?
October 5, 2007... Three years ago, AT&T awarded a $2 billion contract to Ericsson, Lucent and Siemens to supply the 3G mobile infrastructure for Ma Bell's WCDMA U.S wireless network, with Ericsson getting the lion's share of the cash ($900 million) and Lucent...

Carriers, Vendors Now Serious About WiMAX Decisions.
October 5, 2007... Wireless carriers are beginning to discover that the future is now. Thus, they are starting to make critical decisions about their 4G strategies as mobile WiMAX (802.16e) moves from trials and pilots to the first real-world network...

Vonage Pays Off Sprint-Nextel To End Patent Battle.(Company overview)
October 8, 2007... Vonage has agreed to pay Sprint-Nextel $80 million - nearly 30 percent of all the cash the company has left in the bank - both to settle Sprint's claims that the "pure play" VoIP industry leader trampled on a pile of Sprint VoIP patents and...

AT&T Internet Protect Adds A VPN Factor.
October 8, 2007... Private Intranet Protect, an alerting and notification tool designed to analyze traffic on a user's Virtual Private Network (VPN) and to help detect intrusions, cyber attacks and other potentially threatening identified anomalies is the...

Akamai Launches First Managed Service For IP-Delivered Apps.
October 8, 2007... Akamai today went to market with what it says is the industry's first managed-service solution that improves the delivery of any enterprise IP-based application. The company's new offering, called its IP Application Accelerator service,...

XO Communications Forms Enterprise Solutions Group.
October 8, 2007... In its third announcement in less than a month (TelecomWeb news break, Sept. 27), XO Communications continues to expand its presence in the enterprise market, today detailing the formation of a new sales and support organization, an enhanced...

Software Upgrade Adds Contact-Center, Enterprise IPT Security.
October 8, 2007... Interactive Intelligence Inc. says it's releasing a major upgrade to its contact-center automation and enterprise IP telephony software platform. Dubbed Version 3.0, the company's Customer Interaction Center (CIC) and Vonexus Enterprise...

U.K.'s Health Service Adopts Managed VoIP Service.
October 8, 2007... The U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) has begun the transition to VoIP, delivered as a managed service over "N3," the 4.5 Gb/s NHS national broadband network rolled out by BT as part of NHS' National Programme for Information Technology....

AT&T In $2.5B Hiwire Act.
October 9, 2007... AT&T is paying $2.5 billion for the 700 MHz spectrum owned by Aloha Partners LP in an acquisition that may spell the death of DVB-H mobile-TV technology in the United States. Aloha subsidiary Hiwire, together with SES Americom, had been...

Satellite Broadband Trio Targets Enterprise VPNs.
October 9, 2007... Satellite-based broadband provider WildBlue, teaming with XipLink and Trispen Techologies, has put together a secure virtual private network (VPN) offering for business customers. The service, targeted at small- and medium-sized...

DigitalLine: Big-Company App At Small-Company Price.
October 9, 2007... RingCentral Inc., whose online services allow small businesses to unify and manage their wireline, wireless, fax and e-mail communications, is touting its new "DigitalLine," a VoIP service it says adds "the convenience and cost savings of...

Global IT Spending Could Top $3T This Year.
October 9, 2007... 2007 could be a banner year for the IT industry as worldwide IT spending is projected to surpass $3 trillion, according to Gartner Inc. The market-research group predicts IT spending by year's end will reach $3.1 trillion, up 8 percent...

Convergence Will Drive Enterprise Professional Services Through 2012.
October 9, 2007... According to a recently released forecast published by the Telecom Intelligence Group's InfoTrack for Enterprise Services, Professional Services Track, the key convergence professional service opportunity areas in the U.S. market include...

HP Enters Unified Communications Services Market.
October 9, 2007... Hewlett-Packard (HP) has jumped into the unified communications (UC) services pool, looking to cash in as a UC systems integrator and leveraging its existing deals with the likes of Cisco, Microsoft, Nortel, Avaya and Ericsson. It's put...

BT Enters Unified Communications Services Market.
October 10, 2007... BT today unveiled a suite of unified communications (UC) and collaboration (UCC) solutions and services for global enterprise customers. As a key part of the offering from its Global Services unit, BT says it will offer corporate...

Meru Adds Newest Wi-Fi Handsets To Enterprise Mobility Stable.
October 10, 2007... Meru Networks, a provider of workplace mobility infrastructure for wireless VoIP, data and video, has certified the "secure and seamless" interoperability of a wide range of new dual-mode and Wi-Fi phones from the likes of Apple, RIM, Cisco,...

SMBs Tout Cbeyond, Avaya Converged Voice-And-Data Solution.
October 10, 2007... Atlanta-based Cbeyond says its "BeyondVoice with SIPconnect" service, an integrated package of local and long-distance voice, broadband Internet and mobile services, is interoperable with Avaya's "IP Office" solution, a converged voice and...

Verizon Now Offers Managed WAN Optimization.
October 10, 2007... Verizon Business has gone into the managed WAN optimization service business - with the telco division now saying it sees its role as "taking responsibility for enterprise application performance as well as simply provisioning the networks...

100 Gb/s Internet2 Nationwide Upgrade Launches.
October 10, 2007... The Internet2 Consortium has declared its new nationwide network infrastructure "complete," with an initial capacity of 100 Gb/s and the ability to scale into multiple terabytes per second. Disclosure that the network infrastructure is now...

Iron Mountain Deploys VPN, Talks Information Storage Shortfalls.
October 10, 2007... Iron Mountain, which bills itself as being the global leader in information protection and storage services, tapped AT&T to provide an Internet Protocol (IP)-based Virtual Private Network (VPN) that connects 157 of its business locations...

House Action Vets Internet, Broadband, E911 Bills.
October 11, 2007... Late yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee passed a bill extending the Internet tax moratorium that is slated to expire Nov. 1. The bill (which now heads to the full House for a vote) extends the moratorium on Internet access taxes and...

Unisys, NEC Team For Unified Communications.
October 11, 2007... This morning, Unisys Corporation and NEC Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to expand their collaboration to include enterprise unified-communications solutions. Under terms of the pact, Unisys is to integrate NEC's...

Another Cableco Opts For Primal VoIP Software.
October 11, 2007... Primal Solutions, which offers IP transaction-management platforms used in delivering carrier-grade charging and settlement-management solutions, signed cable-TV provider Bresnan Communications as a customer. As such, Bresnan has launched a...

Microsoft Global Lotus Tour Adds Unify.
October 11, 2007... Application-modernization software provider Unify Corp. has expanded its global partnership with Microsoft by joining an international road show aimed at customers of IBM's Lotus Notes. Unify was selected to join Microsoft's global...

KPN, iBasis, Pingo Jump Into SMB Hosted VoIP Business.
October 11, 2007... Pingo, the calling-card subsidiary of international long-distance carrier iBasis (which itself has just become a KPN subsidiary), is entering the SMB VoIP business with a hosted offering it's calling "Pingo Business." The move into...

Vonage Settles Another Suit; 2 Down, 2 To Go.
October 11, 2007... Vonage says it's settled its second patent-infringement suit in a week, agreeing to take a license from Klausner Technologies Inc. for so-called "visual voice mail" technology that lets users manipulate voice mail as if it were e- mail. ...

IBM Trumps Microsoft With Unified Communications Ploy.
October 12, 2007... The decades-long love/hate relationship between Microsoft and IBM has moved into the emerging arena of unified communications. In a pre-emptive attack designed to take some of the wind out of Microsoft's introduction of Office...

Siemens Pushes Partners To Sell 'Solutions'.
October 12, 2007... Siemens Enterprise Communications this morning unveiled a new partner accreditation program - dubbing it "Go Forward!" - to help its distributors and value-added resellers (VARs) sell communications "solutions" and not just hardware...

New Edge Networks: Better SLAs Needed.
October 12, 2007... The top executive of New Edge Networks, which builds and manages private IP-based wide area networks (WANs) that don't use the public Internet, has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging the telecom industry to improve service level...

Paetec Bolsters SMB Offerings With Allworx Acquisition.
October 12, 2007... Paetec Holding Corp. is buying privately held Allworx Corp., in a $25 million all-cash deal. The buyer is involved in personalizing business communications for medium-sized and large businesses (SMBs), enterprises and institutions across...

Verizon Opens German Managed-Services Center.
October 12, 2007... Verizon Business cut the ribbon on a "Smart Center" in Frankfurt, Germany, aimed at supporting those of its global customers that have what it calls "complex computing requirements in continental Europe." This new center joins similar...

Lack Of Growth Could Spell RLEC Demise.
October 12, 2007... According to Fitch Ratings, underlying negative trends support consolidation in the rural local exchange carrier (RLEC) industry during the next few years. RLECs are experiencing relatively little organic growth, the company says,...

Cisco Vets Unveil Enterprise Mobility Venture.
October 15, 2007... A new company, calling itself Agito Networks and founded by a cadre of former Cisco Systems Wireless Networking Business Unit veterans, today tipped its hand and officially launched itself on the enterprise mobility scene. Flush with $9...

Mobile Services House Motricity Buys Rival InfoSpace.
October 15, 2007... Motricity is purchasing the mobile-services business unit of rival InfoSpace for $135 million in cash. The deal will make Motricity the unchallenged leader in several areas of managed-services infrastructure for wireless carriers, including...

U.S. Giant Wins European Vendor Award.
October 15, 2007... Avaya took home the Vendor Channel Programme at last night's Channel Network Awards at the London Hilton, cited as "the vendor whose channel program provides resellers with the best opportunities to increase their business profitability by...

MDM Players Partner For Back-Up & Restore Functionality.
October 15, 2007... InnoPath Software, a maker of mobile device management (MDM) solutions, inked an OEM agreement with O3SIS of Cologne, Germany, to market a complete Integrated Mobile Device Management (iMDM)-based back-up & restore solution. As carriers...

GlobalTouch Chooses Third-Party Vendor For CALEA Mandate.
October 15, 2007... Hosted VoIP provider GlobalTouch Telecom says it's now "fully CALEA compliant," adding it's leveraged IP Fabrics' "DeepSweep" system to satisfy the necessary government regulations. CALEA is short for the Communications Assistance for...

Converged Communications Rides The Rails.
October 15, 2007... Avaya, together with ObjectTel, has built what they believe is the largest IP-based converged voice, data and radio network in the world - a massive network spanning 28 states and two Canadian provinces put together for the BNSF Railway...

Microsoft Unleashes Unified Communications Power Play.
October 16, 2007... With all the subtlety of a 2,000-strong marching band, Microsoft today formally released its long-expected Unified Communications (UC) software family. The number 2,000 represents the number of "partners" Microsoft says it's signed up so...

Jamcracker, BroadSoft Ink VoIP SaaS Pact.
October 16, 2007... A new deal with Jamcracker will enable BroadSoft's VoIP offerings to be sold under the banner of "Software as a Service" (SaaS) using Jamcracker's Services Delivery Network (JSDN). The collaboration, the two say, will include the ability...

OmniTouch Contact Center App Tackles Another Market.
October 16, 2007... Alcatel-Lucent says it will offer the OmniTouch Contact Center Premium Edition in North America alongside the company's other OmniTouch offerings: OmniTouch Contact Center Standard, a basic voice-only ACD; and the company's OmniGenesys for...

Survey Sez: U.S. VARs Back Competition, Rules-Free Internet.
October 16, 2007... For U.S. value added resellers (VARs) of information technology (IT), increasing broadband competition and keeping the Internet free from regulation are matters that go beyond pedestrian platitudes. Rather, they stand as paramount,...

Siemens Study Says Lack Of UC Can Cost Companies 'Millions'.
October 16, 2007... The average 1,000-person enterprise squanders almost $13 million a year in "avoidable" expenses and lost productivity because it doesn't have a unified communications (UC) strategy. A landmark study just released by Siemens Enterprise...

WIPS Security Upgrade Works With Cisco WLANs.
October 16, 2007... AirTight Networks, a provider of wireless intrusion prevention solutions (WIPS), now is offering SpectraGuard Enterprise 5.5, which it says sets a new standard for WIPS functionality. Using SpectraGuard, AirTight says companies can reduce...

Internet Tax Moratorium One Step Closer To Extension.
October 17, 2007... Yesterday, a scant three weeks before the Nov. 1 end date of the moratorium on Internet taxation, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the "Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) Amendments Act of 2007," introduced by House...

Data & Storage Network Convergence In First Public Demo.
October 17, 2007... The first public working demonstration of a converged network melding data and storage broadband networks is taking place in Dallas this week, using the nascent fibre channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard being proposed by a long list of...

AT&T Offers 1 GB/s 'Bandwidth On Demand'.
October 17, 2007... AT&T's business arm has launched a 1 Gb/s bandwidth on demand offering, as part of its year-old optical mesh offering, for its enterprise and wholesale customers. The Optical Mesh Services offering lets customers reallocate bandwidth as...

'Business Connect' Hosted Service Targets Small Businesses.
October 17, 2007... Business Connect, a new hosted phone service for small businesses from eOn Communications, offers what the company says is an alternative to traditional on-premise systems and providing large-company telephony features and functionality...

What SMBs Need To Implement Successful UC Solutions.
October 17, 2007... While U.S. small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) continue to sift through the ins and outs of unified communications (UC), new research seems to indicate they've started to adopt various facets of UC in a "best-of-breed, piecemeal...

Polycom & 3Com Ink Co-Branding Pact.
October 17, 2007... Polycom and 3Com have inked a co-branding pact under which 3Com will OEM and jointly market Polycom's wired IP desktop and conference phones. Polycom and 3Com said that they also intend to include future integration in areas such as...

France Telecom Slapped For Illegal Gov't Handouts.
October 18, 2007... The European Court of Justice, Europe's highest judicial authority, upheld a ruling by the European Commission and has ordered France Telecom to repay what could tote up to be $2.41 billion in state aid it received from the French government...

Sprint, MobileAccess Team For Enterprise Connectivity.
October 18, 2007... Today, large enterprises must address the mobile connectivity, communication and collaboration needs of both their road warrior and corridor warrior populations. As such, Sprint and MobileAccess are partnering to deliver a universal...

Covad Dips Its Toe Into The Managed-Services Pool.
October 18, 2007... Covad has entered the managed-services business via a deal with security maven McAfee under which Covad will bundle McAfee Total Protection for Small Business services with its broadband products for small business customers. The service...

FoIP Proves Fax Isn't Dead As A Business Tool.
October 18, 2007... Earlier today, Alcatel-Lucent and Sagem Communications (part of the SAFRAN Group) launched an embedded version of Sagem-Interstar's fax-over-IP (FoIP) server technology called "XMediusFAX" within the Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch Unified...

SIP Trunking Works With Avaya IP Office Solutions.
October 18, 2007... Gamma Telecom, one of the U.K.'s larger providers of voice services and applications, says its Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking services have been rated compliant with Avaya's IP Office, an intelligent communications solution for...

Carphone Warehouse Turns To Patni For Outsourcing.
October 18, 2007... India IT services house Patni Computer Systems landed a five-year deal with the U.K.'s Carphone Warehouse that could net Patni an estimated $200 million. Under terms of the deal, Patni is to provide integrated services across...